Dr and Mr Moriarty
by lalunaticscribe
Summary: John is Jim Moriarty's husband... and he is a perfectly ordinary bloke. Criminal activities don't touch their relationship. Absolutely. They have an ordinary relationship and marriage. They are both happy - for a given value of happy, between a secret criminal mastermind and an ex-Army surgeon. Right? Sherlock is confused. Also up on AO3. Warning: Tragic end
1. Dear Jim

There are worlds, within worlds, within worlds.

Some worlds are defined by heartbreak. Some by fire, some by ice. Nearly all worlds follow a pattern of infrastructure, an idea, a person. A person can indeed change a world.

Yet, a man is not immortal. A man, barring radical changes in science or the discovery of powers higher than should be possible, will not outlive a century. A man can be so very ordinary...

… yet, a man can change everything.

In one world, it is defined by the meeting of two men. One brilliant, anti-social, genius of a man, a consulting detective who dances so very often upon the line of good and evil. A man who, while on the side of the angels, is not one of them. The other man, a former Army doctor with a taste for danger. A man who has walked with kings and yet remain true to his middle-class roots, who is nearly always wrapped up in jumpers and jeans and watches crap telly while, in a drawer somewhere, a rather illegal firearm sleeps.

They fight a criminal mastermind, the result of what the brilliant man could have been, and the ordinary doctor records these stories down. These stories immortalise Holmes and Watson, to do battle against the likes of Professor James Moriarty.

This is not that world.

Conjunctions form by providence. A meeting of two men in a laboratory at St Bartholomew's Hospital; one great but hardly good, one good but hardly great. Together, they are great _and_ good.

Before that, there was a joke, a joke between an Irish student who is a genius, too, but pretending to be not, and another student, who is studying medicine, and then both of them are dreaming.

"What the hell can I do?" the Irishman was saying. "Acting, theatre, chemistry, mathematics! It's all _boring_!"

The student of medicine laughs, unaware of the malice hidden under a sharp nose and shifty reptilian eyes, or perhaps uncaring of such a feature. "I dunno, Jim. You could be a consultant. 'Dear Jim, I can't figure out Euler's equation, please help'. 'Dear Jim, I can't hit the high notes for the school's latest Wagnerian plot-'"

"_Booooring, _Johnny, _booring_..."

"'Dear Jim, please get rid of my sister's abusive wife for me'," the medical student chuckled. "You're a brilliant man, Jim, you can make it anywhere. Please don't try to become a serial killer, though."

The Irish student of multiple disciplines, for of course the intelligent could make it anywhere, freezes, turning onto the medical student with three names with sudden alacrity. "...'Dear Jim'?"

"Well, we write letters, they start out with 'Dear insert name here', Jim. You don't skip the salutation, that's just rude. You _did_ write it in for your visa application, right?"

"That's... that's amazing. _John_, you're lovely and brilliant and I could marry you."

"I'll take your word for it."

Later, when the visa application fails and our students run to Gretna Green, and the signatures are made and rings exchanged, our students set out in life as Moriarty. One follows the path of a soldier, meeting his husband only on leaves and the repeating honeymoon that doesn't so much repeats as continues from where they leave off. The other becomes a consultant, a euphemistically titled 'solutions provider' whose only call-sign becomes the first totem that defined the bond: 'Dear Jim'.

Dr John Watson-Moriarty. Mr James Moriarty-Watson.

Moriarty.


	2. Welcome Back, Dr Moriarty

A sniper tried to kill John once. Fortunately, for the world, the sniper failed.

What that Afghani soldier didn't know, was that you don't need a black-market McMillan Tac-50 with telescopic sight, and you don't need to suffer the risks of return fire to take John Watson out with varying degrees of cleanliness. Of course, John is mortal, and thus can be slain. The real question should be, would the assassin survive what would come for him?

That is because the endeavour is so suicidally insane, and that the cell was marked for death barely three weeks after Dr John Watson-Moriarty was invalidated from Kandahar towards the British Isles, approximately five years, maybe more, of long-distance matrimonial existence since that time the boys ran to Gretna Green.

* * *

There are some facts that prove Jim Moriarty as human. Of course, there are also people who would swear up and down that Jim was the devil incarnate, or that the devil himself had not seen malice incarnate in the form of Jim, or that Hell itself couldn't keep Jim for all the souls in the world. Moriarty is a name to be feared in the underworld, no matter which part of the world you were in. Unless it was a war-zone, then it was less of worrying about one specific organisation out for your blood and more of everyone out there trying to kill you. Then Moriarty's power was largely relegated to something... less powerful, though no less widespread. The one lucky shot that sent John Moriarty-Watson home was proof of that.

Oh, and that sometime in the distant past, Jim had a boyfriend. Sebastian was still boggling on that last bit.

Sebastian Moran was not pleased. He was fucking good at his job. This quality was _not_ optional; his predecessor as Moriarty's second-in-command had been roasted alive in one of the giant furnaces for suckling pigs – cement boots in the Thames was too pedestrian for the Boss).

He wasn't complaining; he loved the job. On days like this, though, he wished he was bloody clairvoyant just so that the surprises did not feel like there was a conspiracy courtesy of Jim to kill him.

Jim and he, the pair of them were standing in the middle of Heathrow International Airport's arrival hall, and Jim was pacing about in one of those 8-figure shapes that drove Sebastian insane just watching Jim pace through it. They barely got any looks, both men tailored in the best suits money could buy and Jim in Westwood. Sebastian would have checked for sniper positions, except that the revelation of Jim's bit on the side had sent his mind crashing like a shoddy Microsoft product.

There had been strict instructions left that the Boss was not to be disturbed for the next two hours. Some big overseas client with a request to hack into NORAD. It was Christmas as far as Jim was concerned. The call came in, and Jim the workaholic psychopath had shoved the work aside for a quick run to Heathrow with Moran tagging behind.

Moran had known he was making the right call as he opened the door and stepped in. If not, well, burning to a crisp within seconds was better than drowning at least.

Anyway, Jim looked up and his face split open in a smile that could have powered the airport for a whole year and he squealed, yes squealed, a sound that Sebastian would have sworn never escaped from the lips of Professor Moriarty: "John!"

When Sebastian first saw John, he had been unimpressed and underwhelmed. An inch or so below the average height, a forgettable face brown as a nut, and a body thin and weak, wrecked with sickness and just left the discipline of the army. Even his service didn't impress Sebastian – a doctor, not a true soldier, and he hadn't exactly climbed the ranks.

"Who's this?" Sebastian had asked the grinning Irishman.

"John?" Moriarty had mumbled. "Oh, he's my _John_. We've known each other since university, still keep in touch by letters."

There was a caress placed to those words that made John Watson a lot more dangerous, as a man courageous enough to tup Jim Moriarty over. Sebastian had given the man mental props for at least being able to do that, let alone keep at shagging the Boss.

"Johnny!" Jim had done that sound again and planted a big one on him, which the man allowed with the sort of long-suffering expression Sebastian had seen grace his own face, along with a hint of fondness. He still wore desert camouflage,

"Jim," John had smiled in answer as he gave an answering hug and a peck on the cheek. "Been busy with the consulting work? What's it this time, international shipping?"

"Still freelance," Jim answered.

"And who's this?" John had nodded towards Sebastian, giving a small, warm smile.

"Sebastian Moran," Jim was hanging off of the man's arm. "My PA. Live-in PA."

"Is that still a thing?" John's brow scrunched up.

"I'm in huge demand, Johnny. I showed you the tapes, right? 'Three C Watson'?"

"J- Jim!" John blushed, and Sebastian had the merit of comparing the man to a fluffy swan who had found his soul-mate. "We're not involving your PA in our sex life!"

"So you're the infamous John Watson," Sebastian had started the conversation as Jim began to pout.

"I don't know about infamous, but yeah," John had returned the handshake on the left hand, the tremor only slightly visible.

"Are you a serial killer?"

"Um, no."

"You seem normal enough."

"Thanks?"

"Right. Long tour? The Boss's doesn't share his boyfriend."

John frowned. "That's weird."

"Yes, it is." Sebastian could feel the vindication of someone who knew that the rules of normalcy and rationality would reassert themselves over the world.

"We've been married for over five years."

The reassertion was short-lived.

* * *

"The cabbie's been giving us the stink-eye," John muttered as they tromped up to Jim's palatial flat somewhere in Knightsbridge, which was just one bolt hole out of many. "Black hackney, prowling the streets in the dead of night and driven by a cabbie with the stare of death."

Whatever there could be said about John Watson, or Dr John Watson-Moriarty, he was surprisingly perceptive, Sebastian reflected. It wasn't successful; he kept on getting distracted by the fact that his Boss was married to an ex-Army doctor with PTSD.

Of course, all the perception in the world couldn't have prepared the ex-Army surgeon for the bolt-hole, soon-to-be residence. "This... you're _incredible_, Jim."

"I've been busy," Jim answered with the soppy vagueness that made Sebastian want to throw himself out of the window or eat a bullet just to be put out of his misery. Sebastian would have already made the old joke to get a room, except that this was a) his boss and the husband, and oh god, someone actually married Jim Moriarty, and b) his brain had yet to start up. "It's been horribly _lonely_, John."

John turned a dark-eyed look at the criminal mastermind, and Sebastian was already making for the door. The sun was bright, the air of winter changing to spring, and Sebastian could smell the sex of long-married people going into rut.

Standing guard outside later, Sebastian was then struck with the horrible epiphany that his Boss was _married_. And that his spouse, Dr Moriarty was... frankly, bloody normal.

* * *

**_Let's play a game. Spot the reference!_**


	3. Dr? May I present Mr Sherlock Holmes

Jim had never worked out through any system of logic the exact relationship between God and man, and as several far wiser men already failed in the task long before he had walked the earth, the admission held scant shame. Yet, there had been one miracle in his life. It happened in a bizarrely appointed room just beyond the busiest suburbs of London. The universe may exhibit tendencies towards the chaotic, but the eddies were a means to an end. It must be. There was simply no other explanation for an occurrence so infinitely improbable.

Looking back, Jim couldn't have said that the Watson-Moriarty union had had a lot of time. Jim and John had met in uni, both fresh-faced and Jim with a fourth year in computer studies to go and John nearly kitted out and ready to pay off the Army's sponsorship of his medicine degree. It could be arguable that Jim and John were really, only very close friends/acquaintances/_something _and it irritated Jim that John wasn't recognising the bond of willing audience and genius blossoming between them, on top of being predictable and _boring_. Of course, it was somewhere around the third month that when the bone-chilling realisation came upon him.

John Watson, despite being the highlight of everyone he met, was essentially as alone as he was. John made friends easily, and dropped them just as quickly. Not a mention of primary school, secondary school, not even of family, and even then in depreciating terms and the subject was quickly changed. It was possible, no, _probable_, that once John shipped off to wherever Her Majesty's forces sent him, Jim would join the veritable fleet of ships passing in the night and probably never meet John H. Watson of hedgehog-feature, cable-knit jumper and veritable providence.

It was probably the closest Jim Moriarty's psychopathic blackened heart had come fear. Jim had tried to make himself indispensable to John, hoarding the smiles and tackles and furious sights as dragons do their gold, trying to crawl out of the footnotes of John Watson's view of history.

The solicitor's letter that arrived had been a blessing disguised as a curse, and in his mind there could have been no other outcome. In that dormitory room the paper from Moriarty Sr. had been a mockery of fate to him, and then John Watson had walked in and seen Jim's expression.

"You okay, Jim?"

"Letter," Jim had croaked. "I'll... God, John."

Concerned Face had immediately made itself clear, and then John had frowned after Jim had found it in himself to go through a half-assed explanation.

"So... you don't want to go home, but then Moriarty Sr-" clever, John, "-is demanding you to return. You could stay if you had a sponsor, right?"

"It'll have to be family," Jim mumbled. "I don't have _family_ in the UK, they're all back home on the Emerald Isle. John... I _can't_ go home."

Maybe his worry had been for the budding network he had been building, because in no way was the plan for the parenticide of Moriarty Sr and wife, but then John had nodded.

This gesture had been followed with: "Let's get drunk."

"Excuse me?"

"It's a tradition," John answered. "Before doing anything we don't want to do, take a beer and keep a stiff upper lip. Wait, you're Irish, but we can still pull the whiskey out anyway."

Barely past a bottle later, somehow the pair of them had gone from King's Cross St Pancras to right at the edge of Scotland and stumbled into Gretna Green within two days of getting the license. Two hours later, Mr and Mr Moriarty-Watson had walked out, Jim still feeling like he'd been brained over the head as he stared at his newly minted husband.

"The lawyer can summon Jim Moriarty back, but Jim Moriarty-Watson can go tell his dad to fuck himself and then return," John had grinned, and the grin faded too fast for Jim. "Erm, is this not right? I mean, we can still-"

"I've never wished for anything more," Jim had answered, signing with a flourish, John following after a heartbeat, and then Mr Moriarty-Watson went to kiss the daylights out of Mr Watson-Moriarty. Gretna Green happened, and Jim was starting the realisation that John Hamish – ha, _Hamish, _another mark! – Watson was a freaking _tiger_ in the sack on top of being the newly minted Dr Watson-Moriarty, spouse of the equally new Mr James Dermot – sod off, wanker! – Moriarty-Watson.

"This is all very sudden," he breathed once they broke apart, earning him a laugh.

"It isn't sudden at all, you great buggering prat. Years in the making, for no reason other than the fact you can't seem to either see or observe a gay man when he's leaning with both hands against your own bookcase with his trousers round his ankles."

"In fairness, I think I would have noticed that."

"I exaggerate. Take the wine the nice people at the office gave us, you'll come round to my view of the subject."

The wine had actually been a last-minute order by Jim, but he forbore to mention it. They drank some more wine, made it to the bedsit in a hail of snogging, and were about to descend into the romp of newly-wedded marital bliss when-

"I don't understand," Jim breathed, halfway giggling. "This is insane. _Insane_."

"Insane," John echoed, also giggling. "Oh, stop it, we can't giggle, people next door will talk."

"Let them! This isn't a crime scene!" Jim was already braying, a frame only slightly lanky dropping onto the cheap bedclothes. "You're straight! You're going to invade countries! This isn't insane for you at all!"

"I haven't invaded any countries!" John defended.

"We got _married_," Jim chuckled. "I thought... I thought you were straight!" Then he went back to laughing again.

John crossed his arms, looking like a very put-upon and puffed-up hedgehog. "Oh, shut up, Jim."

"Make me!" Jim cackled. "Make me, Johnny!"

More snogging, maybe a little fumbling, and then something that resembled pay-per-view professional wrestling. When the new couple made it up for air next, John still resembled a hedgehog and Jim a hyena, but both might have been overdosed on oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin.

"You are," John fiercely expounded, "the ponciest tosser to have ever minced his way into a pair of trousers. You are gayer than Stanley Hopkins when he sings second tenor in the chorus wearing his dress uniform. You are as queer as a public schoolboy with a penchant for Greeks. But you love me, so I shall allow it to pass. Neither of us are the domestic kind, and frankly Jim, we really could have chosen another option than this harebrained scheme, but we're stuck with each other now, and we're going to make the best of it, of us. We are really doing this for the long haul. It's going to be tough and hard and sometimes you will hate me and I can't guarantee anything."

"I wouldn't want anything else," Jim had smiled, and meant it. "I don't mind how many women you take to bed. I don't mind even if you choose to tup as many men. But you're going to come back to _me_, Johnny. You're going to come _back_ to me. So fuck me, Dr Watson-Moriarty, so that when you're getting shot at I'll still remember and find you when you come back."

_And even if they bring back pieces of you, I'll fly out to the deserts and track down your bones even if I have to gut every animal in the radius to get to them, _was the unspoken promise._ And I _will_._

A wry grin, and something resembling an evil smile, if really the man with a propensity to be cuddly and cute could be evil. "Well, then, Mr Moriarty-Watson, since we're both insane enough to get through with this, I'll thank you to decide _how_ you'd like to be fucked raw before I bend you over."

A happy squeak, and Jim died a little death.

Sometime in the cosy bedsit the Moriarty-Watson couple had christened their union that night, Jim had been languishing in post-coital bliss and the surety that, somewhere in the addling of his mind, providence existed.

* * *

"Morning!" was the cheery greeting Sebastian received at the ass-crack of dawn, with the coffee-maker up, tea steeping in a mug nearby, and John frying something that smelt like bacon in the sole pan kept in the Knightsbridge hidey-hole. It was all horribly, horribly domestic and Sebastian still wondered if he needed a stronger wake-up call than coffee than self-defenestration.

They _were_ an awful height up, it must be enough to put him out of his horrified wonder.

"Bacon, Moran?" John offered. "There's eggs to go round, plenty for three."

"Seb, or Sebby," the self-christened Seb answered. "Moran makes me feel old. Yes, please."

"Then please, call me John," the husband – and bloody hell, this was the other half of the Moriarty couple? – replied as he laid out the eggs, bacon and toast, hands hardly shaking at all despite the PTSD and the limp, not to mention the stress lines from Last Night. Yes, anything that made the Boss scream like that merited its own capital letters. "Jim said you're the live-in PA?"

"And minder," Seb added, deciding that this spouse probably didn't know about Jim's clandestine activities or psychotic tendencies. "I live in because sometimes I need to drag the Boss out of bed."

"Yeah, he never gets out if he could help it," John agreed, scribbling something and sticking it onto the pan handle. From his position on the kitchen island, Seb could make out DO NOT TOUCH – THIS MEANS YOU, JIM. "Only to blow things up. Paper?"

One polite acceptance and splitting later, Seb was already halfway through the fry-up – one week back and already Dr Watson-Moriarty was making himself at home in the house of a psychopath, amazing – when the psychotic mastermind himself stumbled in. "_Jawn_?"

"Eggs and bacon, you need to eat, and no, you may not use the pan for torturing hapless sugar ants, we're cooking food in it," John ceaselessly answered as he held out the coffee mug, taking his own RAMC mug – which contained tea. "Any other questions?"

A few invectives in Gaelic made themselves known, and Seb reflected that it was all like his own personal soap opera. Not that he'd admit it in front of the Boss, but... it was utterly normal and yet dysfunctional in its own way. Even as the Boss made threatening motions with the knife block that brought some unholy glee to the doctor which was all kinds of rather interesting.

"I would but Seb is here, and I'm quite sure you're not up to flashing your employees," John reminded the gradually waking Boss, and amusement faded to pure relief of being spared the sight.

The Professor himself made at home, wolfing half the plate down before he even acknowledged Seb's presence. Plenty of time to finish his own eggs and watch, with no small amount of amusement, the Boss trying to filch toast and getting his hand smacked by a rolled-up newspaper for his trouble.

"No, you little shit."

"Yes John, may I have more toast? Please?"

Excuse Seb while he boggles.

"Very good," John archly answered. "So, the consulting lark is going well?"

"Bart's system is outdated, love, I'm consulting," the Boss abbreviated. It was true, except that in no way was Jim's 'consulting' asked for. "So we can drive you to work! Isn't that fun?"

"Playing urban warriors on the Tube wasn't? I remember-"

"No, don't give Sebby more blackmail material, hubby!" Jim moaned, almost acting in complaint except that Seb could tell the Boss's amusement from barely concealed boredom.

"If you're here, you're entertained. You're also not out killing people. If I can keep an eye on you I know you're not off…I don't know, blowing up a public building or taking over the world or giving LSD to control groups because you think it's funny. It keeps you entertained and keeps me sane. Well, mostly sane. If I was ever sane to begin with." Sip of tea. "Anyway, I think it's a very good system."

Seb changed his opinion. The man was a BAMF in a fuzzy woolly jumper, using Seb as a target of Jim's later ire rather than capitulate to the masterful nature of Jim Moriarty. Seb was willing to bet that Jim was already giving serious credence to the LSD comment.

"But," John added, "since I shall indeed be starting my first day in Bart's A&E, I am amenable to reason."

"Is that a proposition?" was the very soft reply, a beat too late.

"It could be how you interpret it," was the reply. "But you have ten minutes to summarise it in a way that won't scar Seb for life, or else I'm going to be late for work."

If the impending time limit wasn't horrifying enough for the rest of Seb's day, the wink of Jim Moriarty-Watson and the added: "Car sex." would have been the icing on the cake.

* * *

In any other universe, a meeting of two men would have been engineered by an agent named Mike Stamford, and then something quite similar to a whirlwind courtship could have evolved from it. This is not that part of the multi-verse.

"What in fuck do you think you're doing?"

Engrossed as he is with trying to hot-foot away from the horrid orange blanket, Sherlock doesn't realize that statement is directed at him until it is repeated. Twice.

He swings his head up. Inquiry made by a Caucasian male, between the ages of 35 and 40. Blond hair, blue-eyed, average height, military stance. Subject wearing scrubs, sterile nitrile gloves,an aluminium cane, and is very, very angry. Not angry enough to leave him in peace, but that can be remedied.

"I believe," he drawls, words laced with enough condescension that even Anderson could pick up on it were he present, "that I am leaving."

"That's funny, because, to me? It looks like you're not."

Sherlock confronts with a dramatic straightening of his spine, which, coupled his fiercest glare and an ominous twirl of his coat, has made grown men cower on more than one occasion.

The doctor – new doctor at Bart's A&E, volunteered as a paramedic – blinks at him slowly. "Is that supposed to mean something?" He doesn't look so much angry any more as much as he does bewildered and frustrated. It is a difficult combination to pull off, and Sherlock mentally commends him on it.

By the sidelines, Detective Inspector Lestrade had, in a rather impressive feat of facial control, manages to hide his grin under an expression of complete abashment and help from a Styrofoam mug. The captured Jeff Hope was already being manhandled out of the college, and Yarders milling about were keeping an eye on him.

"It's all transport," Sherlock retorted, completely ignoring the solved puzzle. "I don't _need_ it, no matter what Lestrade thinks."

"Why don't you have a blanket?" Watson asked.

"He won't wear one," Lestrade finally intervened.

"I don't _need _one." Sherlock scoffed.

"Right, yes, because that ridiculously voluminous coat can keep you warm enough in the case of shock."

"…My coat is not ridiculous."

"I'm sure it's very expensive and makes you look appropriately dramatic." The orange blanket finds itself around his shoulders anyway, and the cup is forced into his hand.

Lestrade went off as a commotion started, and then it was with a grave face that he returned. "The aneurysm? It's started. We need to get him in."

The doctor left, towards the milling paramedics who were strapping Jeff Hope into the stretcher. The cabbie's face was ashen pale, mouth wide, and seizing as he was hurriedly carried.

"Listen, Mr Hope, you're going to be fine," the doctor was saying. "My name is Dr Moriarty-"

"_Moriarty_!"

The scream was pronounced in such a manner that even the man who had just tackled Hope into submission jumped, wrapping the orange blanket around him in a gesture of comfort – not that it was appreciated.

"Moriarty!" the cabbie serial killer screamed once more. "I haven't lost, I haven't lost, he hasn't taken it, he's still alive-!"

"Sedate him!" the doctor ordered, and Sherlock watched in great interest as Dr Moriarty expertly prepared the syringe and injected it even while moving and levering the convulsing cabbie into the ambulance. In a strike of inspiration, the long-legged detective slipped and settled himself.

"What the hell are you doing?" was the answering roar, oddly accented with the hint of a Scots burr, and the effect was something oddly charming, Sherlock found.

"I'm in shock, I need to go to the hospital," was the pseudo-innocent reply as the engine started. "Dr Moriarty? The name is Sherlock Holmes."

* * *

**_Spot the reference!_**


	4. Mad, we're all mad

_**Dr and Mr Moriarty**_

* * *

John, obviously, was better at relationships, Jim had decided during their fourth year of marriage.

Nothing about anniversaries, although lingering distressing tendencies was for one or the other, never both, to remember it each year. Thankfully, somehow the event fell exactly when John flew back in for leave. They continued marital life. Neither of them are domestic creatures, after all. Plus the fact that John was often in Afghanistan getting shot at and Jim was somewhere else in the world perpetrating dubious acts of criminal intention most of the time. It was already a wonder either of them ever met up.

Jim hadn't gotten bored with John after four years. It was... refreshing.

"I thought you a mad bugger the first time I saw you," John mused.

They were in one of those domestic moments in one of Jim's 'apartments', this one in Central London, on the couch in front of the telly and watching bad TV. Jim was laid across, his head in John's lap, and they were comfortable. "For hitting on the red-neck, and then for continuing to do so even after you had a split lip."

"Then you jumped in, all knight in shining armour to defend my virtue," Jim sighed, his head buried on John's lap as the hands of a healer and killer stroked his hair. "My hero."

The hand stopped, Jim mourned. "Actually... I wasn't intending to. I thought... you were laughing, you see. I could tell. You liked it, the... violence. Wasn't about to crash the party."

Jim had liked it, being about to lash out freely before the golden knight swept in, and then Jim had gotten distracted. "I don't mind it. It was how we met."

"So it was." A pause. "I'm... just saying this. As a secret. I don't think many spouses appreciate being told that their other halves weren't going to rescue them. Ruins the illusion, I'm told."

"Those other married couples aren't us."

"No. No, they aren't. You like violence and power, I like war and adventure. We aren't normal, we just look the part a bit much."

"Normal's boring, why do we look normal?" Jim complained, half-asleep.

"Uniqueness amongst the unique isn't standing out," John whispered. "It's blending in. But uniqueness amidst the masses of normality? That's transcendent. Okay, if I was James Bond and you were the evil professor, everyone would know, it'd be common. But you're Jim, and I'm John, and these common people-"

"-become _transcendent_." Jim mashed his lip insistently on the groin presented in his face. "That's... that's... I _love_ it."

Utter silence.

"You know..." Jim hesitated. "When I was a kid... there was a guy. He... wasn't a nice boy."

"A bully." More silence. "You were young?"

"Eleven, twelve." Jim could feel his back stiffening. "I hated him. I just wanted him to die. I wasn't the only one, so I thought... I facilitated it. His death."

"You... facilitated someone's death." Polite disbelief.

"Yes." No details. Everything left unreal. "Do you hate me, John? That I could choose someone to die?"

"So he's dead?"

"Of course."

"Well..." silence, and yet the hand never stopped moving, tracing, from his hairline to his forehead, down his cheek and then resting around the carotid artery. Jim could feel his heart speed up.

"I'm a soldier," John finally said, still with the unspoken death threat hanging over his husband's throat. "I killed people."

"You're a doctor."

"I had bad days, but that wasn't the point." A bit short, John was. Bit of a bull pup? Jim knew better, the Watson half kept a whole mastiff. "The point is... you learn desperation in places like Afghanistan. You learn to see it. How there's no other recourse than to kill people. And you, Jim... I don't think anyone's ever taught you restraint, or something approaching it. I believe that you could do anything and never get caught for it. I believe you can kill, you can lie, steal and murder without batting an eye for it. And I believe that if you wanted, you could kill me, and no one would find the body. I can say that I know you would do that."

I wouldn't kill you, Jim wanted to say, but the hand that could stick a thumb into his carotid was still there.

"But, you trust me." John continued, in that no-nonsense way of his. "You're giving me a story of what you did, a dark secret of yours. So I appreciate it, even if you never gave me details of it so I can't testify, though I can't testify anyway. I appreciate that you trust me enough to tell me that you murdered someone. And don't lie."

Jim just nodded.

The hand moved, back to his hair, and the stroking continued.

"I forgive you," John's voice was warm and strong. "Dammit, I forgive you. Even though I know you'll be the death of me."

* * *

Three oversized screens dominated the room, the area kept freezing cold for the sake of the Cray that stood off to one side. It was large, looming, and rather resembled a mad scientist's workshop. Overall, good enough for where the Professor worked.

Jim was already at work, sifting through emails and executing decisions for the Dear Jim front of the business. Seb stood off to one side, watching.

"'Will you help me kill my wife and her lover'- no. Inheritance- no. Will you kill my father/mother/neighbour- why do we get so many petty little problems?" Jim raged. "Sebby, be a dear and put John on the phone, I need my muse about."

Seb was quite sure that his eyebrows must have made for the moon by this point. "Boss?"

"Johnny's always been inspiring, he gave me the idea of the serial killer cabbie, it's fantastic." Jim chuckled. "He also gave me the idea of fronting the business as Dear Jim. It's the salutation, you see."

Seb nodded, despite feeling that he was completely missing the point. "Dr Watson said that he was locking up his phone-"

"It's Dr Moriarty, I changed all his documents, he's still a bit sore that I forgot to add Watson to it. Does it matter? Call him!"

Feeling that he would rather have the imaginary buffer of Jim's wife/husband/minder in between him and metaphorical death, Seb made the call.

"Moriarty-Watson. Is that you, Seb?"

"How'd you know?"

"Your voice, the military silence, and that I have caller ID with 'Live-in PA' written with a lot of winks and nudges. Slap Jim for me, would you?"

Seb would like to, unfortunately Seb would prefer both hands to remain attached to his person. "I'll make a note. You can chew him out. He'd like that. But now the Boss is a bit... uninspired."

"Yeah? I just left A&E with a cabbie serial killer and a mad bugger in a Belstaff coat behind."

Shit. Seb wordlessly handed the phone over.

"Johnny! Hi!" Jim was talking quickly again. "I'm bored, every case I have is boring and it hurts!"

"Jim, did a cabbie named Jeff Hope ever contact you?"

Jim paused, and already Seb could see the tiny little wheels of processor microchips and their zinging electrons grind to a halt. "Oh? Something about a get-rich-quick scheme. I had to explain I'm not a miracle worker and send him off."

A blink, and the expression completely changed to wide-eyed. "Did you get hurt, John? Did he _hurt_ you?"

"I'm fine. Hope was carted into Bart's, aneurysm. Tried to make a run for it, I brained him with my cane when he tried to stab me with the empty syringe. There's another mad bugger about, you'd like him, Holmes. He's all your style. Okay, so I don't have a legally dubious stalker following me home because of whatever soup the consulting gig landed you in this time, right?"

"Ah, Johnny, the CIA crash one date and you hold it against me for the rest of your life."

"It was a misunderstanding that accidentally happened during our second anniversary, Jim. The CIA crashing it was horrible."

"But you beat them all!"

"You had _law enforcement_ on you, Jim. Not that I'm unprepared to visit in prison. It's going to be a damper on you, your brilliant mind and your psycho tendencies if you're in it." A pause. "Oh God, please tell me the Yard isn't crashing our house right now-"

_Crash_.

The phone clicked. Jim leapt to his feet in a pose that should be dramatically heroic but made him look a bit silly. The look on his face was shock; an unpredictable variable introduced.

"Get the car."

Seb, on top of being a bodyguard and second-in-command, was also the driver. So as Seb was breaking every traffic law in the Greater London area, Jim was free to check all of his alerts and frantically place call after call on John's mobile. There was nothing untoward about the Knightsbridge hole; Jim had been adamant that John knew nothing about the criminal empire, and kept to that.

The burglar alarm goes off, followed by Jim's phone.

"Moriarty-Watson." Jim breathlessly answered.

"Finally," John's voice comes through, complete with alacrity. "Two men in masks just broke into our house. I brained one over the head with my cane, and I may have accidentally set one up with grievous assault. I've set the alarm off and called the Yard. Jim? Keep breathing, love. I'm fine, you can stop worrying now."

"Er... right! Of course. Do you need me to pick anything up?"

"Milk, chocolate digestives, Jaffa cakes. Also, a cane from Bart's."

"What's wrong with yours?"

A pause, and then John's voice, somewhat bashful. "Um, it broke."

* * *

Sherlock came to an abrupt quivering halt two metres away from where they were standing.

John looked up, as if noticing him for the first time, made a friendly noise and offered him a digestive biscuit.

The Yarders present held their breath.

Sherlock looked at John, looked at the biscuit, looked back at John, snatched the biscuit and retreated to a safe distance to nibble on it cautiously.

Breathing continued. For a few minutes there was silence as John sipped his tea while Sherlock watched him intently. Then Sherlock made a noise, turned half away, looked back over his shoulder and began to twirl slowly about the ordinary sleek sitting room.

"They got in by the window," Sherlock muttered. "Of course, they were in the middle of prying the fixtures out of the walls when you came in, Dr Moriarty."

"Spare me the theatrics, Mr Holmes," the doctor groaned. "It's John. Biscuit, Detective Inspector? And weren't _you_ in shock, anyway?"

Sherlock soon picked up speed, coat billowing open to reveal soft blue scarf and vibrant purple shirt. "They thought they could subdue you, tie you up and leave, they didn't expect their man to be former Army. So you used your cane, beat one to death and knocked the other out."

"With help," John added. "Door frame's steel; useful when making forced introductions of nose to frame."

"He's insane!" the sole thief left alive was babbling as Sally and another Sergeant frog-marched him off. "Get him away from me! I'll confess, I'll confess! Moriarty, he's insane!"

Another who knew the name. Sherlock mentally noted. "The story checks out. You'll find a knife with the dead thief, Lestrade, still in hand. Handy; it buys Dr Moriarty an alibi for self-defence."

"John? John!" another man runs in, immaculate in a suit save for the desperation. "Are you alright? I heard, the break-in!"

"I'm alright, we didn't lose anything, Jim." John stood, and Sherlock noted that his hands were on either side of him, and still. "This is the mad bugger I was talking to you about. Brilliant, really, smart, got everything right 'cept about Harry."

"How was I supposed to know that Harry was your sister, Dr Moriarty?" Sherlock sneered, although it was less biting and more chiding. "And... your friend is...?"

"Oh, Jim's my husband," John gave a blinding smile.

"Damn."

Everyone quickly swivelled onto Sherlock, who had uttered the invective.

"Beg pardon?" Lestrade was the first to recover.

"Oh, John, I didn't mean it," Jim was grating onto Sherlock's nerves. "The insurance, I didn't think-"

"Nothing is missing, nothing is broken," Lestrade assured, having taken over now that Sherlock was departing in a huff and a swirl of billowing coat. "It's alright, Mr..."

"Watson," Jim said. "Jim Watson."

If John had been uncharacteristically silent, Sherlock had never noticed, having gone to stand outside and try not to punch the daylights out of Mr Jim Watson.

Five hours later, Lestrade had dragged the tall, looming and even more surly consulting detective for statements and tea.

"Sherlock?" Lestrade prompted. "You're disappointed."

"I should have known he was _married_." The way he said it, Sherlock sounded as though Dr John Moriarty had done him a personal wrong. "I didn't see the ring, but he's a doctor, I should have checked his neck! Ugh, stupid, so stupid."

"Well, that doesn't happen everyday," Lestrade primly replied. "So the Moriarty that Hope was screaming about- the sponsor?"

"It's the doctor."

"That can't be right. According to his statement, Dr Moriarty's never seen Hope in his life. It could be the other, Jim-"

"Of course not. Even an idiot could tell, Lestrade. It's obvious that Dr Moriarty's the level-headed one of the two. He's the main pillar of the house; Watson's obviously a dependent. It's got to be him. Acclimatised to violence, calm in the face of danger, capable of beating a man to death and injuring another with an aluminium crutch, it can't be anyone else. It's _got_ to."

* * *

_**Please review!**_


	5. Amongst the first of criminals

_**Dr and Mr Moriarty**_

* * *

During the second anniversary, Jim might have gone a _bit_ overboard with the dominatrix.

In fairness, he argued, he knew John was a fairly adventurous man who liked a bit on the side, and Irene was a fairly not-boring person who had joined the web a few months before. He didn't know that John would not only disapprove of Irene, but also bring his _own_ dominatrix. Hence the two rather histrionic personalities currently mid-clash in their rather modest sitting room. Erm, modest as in definite enough to fit a middle-class family.

"Well, isn't this awkward, Penelope," Irene began with her choice of barbs.

"Hardly, _Irene_," Penny Huxleigh stated with the alacrity only the English upper crust had somehow managed to master. "I am perfectly comfortable here."

"It's awkward. You can admit it."

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

"You and I think very differently, Penny darling." Irene simpered. "Still keeping up with the posh Brit act, Penny darling?"

"Irene, unlike you, who may or may not end up on your back, the British matron has a long and varied history of being formidable. It would take more than some lily-livered fool to displace the established order... unlike your _American_ tastes."

"The land of the free is an enterprise, Penny. A powerful enterprise."

"An enterprise filled with colonial heathens who butcher the English language, and repressed Puritan tendencies. Oh _certainly_."

"Catfight!" Jim cheered from the sidelines. John smacked him on the back of the head.

In the end, Penny Huxleigh capitulated, but only after Irene Adler stormed off in a huff, and the second anniversary started off on a high note of a lesbian cat-fight.

"Working already?" John groaned as Jim pulled his phone over.

"Need to create a top-secret code," Jim shrugged. "It's a commission. Interesting, creating an unbreakable code."

"Oh?" John yawned. "You're smart enough to make it. How'd you do it?"

"It's like inventing another language," Jim insisted. "Or substituting words. Slang is really a more widespread use of code, really, using words to mean something else. Or our safeword."

"Ineffable," John nodded.

"Yes, I might say to, say, Irene or Penny or you, and they'll understand that I want it to stop, whatever it is," Jim waved a hand towards a screen filled with letters. "I say it to anyone else, and they'll ruin their little minds all around it."

"Why not just use words everyone can use?"

"Johnny, hon. They don't speak English, and there is no way to mutate a Chinese character to a coded phrase without taking it out of context. It's going to stand out, and there are several different ways of it."

"So use a common factor," John grumbled, tugging on Jim's arm. "One that everyone would use, so it won't stand out."

"It's... worth considering," Jim acknowledged, setting his phone down with a grin. "I'll put it aside for now. Come here, Johnny."

* * *

_Unexpected item in bagging area, please try again._

_Item not scanned, please try again._

"Can you maybe keep your voice down?"

_Card not authorised._

"Yes, all right! I've got it!"

_Please use an alternative method of payment. Card not authorised. Please use an alternative method of payment._

"Ah, the heck with it," John muttered, storming off in a huff. "Keep it, keep that."

The snit lasted all the way until he reached Knightsbridge, where the sight of Jim sprawled on the couch in pyjamas greeted him.

"You're back."

"And you haven't moved since I left the house," John frowned down at him, storming into the kitchen. "Tea?"

"Please."

"We don't have milk." John added as he entered the kitchen.

"What? Why not?"

"I had a row with the chip-and-PIN machine."

"You..." Jim sat up. "_You_ had a row with a _machine_?"

"Sort of," a clatter of mugs. "It sat there and I shouted abuse at it."

Jim smirked at the amusing mental image this provided. "Take my card. Did you get the job?"

"Just locum work. Very mundane, very... boring. Get back into practice, one step at a time."

Jim idly reflected. "And the over-qualifications don't matter, not when two doctors are on holiday and one just took leave to have her baby."

"How did you know _that_?" John shook his head, carrying both mugs into the room.

"Flu season, over-qualification, and you stepped in a puddle of sick."

"Oh, yuck!" John rushed to wash his foot. Jim giggled, and continued his correspondence with his contact. Transporting a whole gang of Chinese smugglers into London was more difficult than anyone would think.

* * *

"Piss off, Mycroft," was Sherlock's chosen opening jibe.

"You're getting even more immature than usual, _petit frère_," the British Government observed, ensconced in the chair that had stood empty since Sherlock, with manipulation from Mycroft, moved into 221B Baker Street. "Has this something to do with the Doctor? Dr Moriarty, I believe?"

"He's brilliant," Sherlock breathed. "Elegance, a monster hidden amongst the crowds, these dull masses don't even realise the predators in their midst. How did you miss out on a man who could have been the MI6 recruit of the century, Mycroft? Too much cake?"

"To be fair, he was a very good doctor," Mycroft shot back. "You find him... fascinating."

"I'll never find another Moriarty, Mycroft," Sherlock's hands literally shook with the force he was using to wave them about. "Simple elegance. He must have killed Jefferson Hope in some manner, nobody suspects a doctor of wrongdoing until they do it. Nerve, and knowledge, not to mention already being a soldier. John Adams, Harold Shipman, Herman Webster Mudgett, they wouldn't compare to him."

"Dr Moriarty has no known record of malpractice," Mycroft pointed out. "And the fact that you refer to a century-old serial killer who shares our name is not a comforting thought."

"Mycroft, putting an unreasonable attachment to our family name is not the reason you're here, so talk and then show yourself out! There are many people named Holmes!"

Mycroft Holmes merely sat back. "Like you said. There are many named Holmes. Names, and certainly the most common ones, are apt to be shared amongst the populace. So despite that your doctor might have a unique name does not mean that he is the only Dr Moriarty in the world."

"A doctor, as a criminal!" Sherlock insisted. "A healer, and a killer! Think of the dichotomy, Mycroft!"

"That's not very decent!"

"Who cares about decent?! The game, is on!"

* * *

Seb had started his career with the Dear Jim Consultations up to his elbows in a man's ripped open abdomen. Three weeks later, he was digging out bullets from a hitman's shoulder in Argentina as projectiles _swooshed_ mere centimetres above their heads. Three months after _that_ he stood by the window in a horrifyingly expensive (and tasteless) Dubai apartment taking aim on the party in the apartment across the street.

But, to be confronted with Dr Moriarty casually performing an emergency tracheotomy with two Biro pens? Not really his area.

Watching John Watson-Moriarty stick the nibs, easy as you please, Sebby was reminded of that Dark Knight movie where the Joker 'disappeared' a pencil. Jim had been in an uproar over that for weeks. Now, Sebby was disturbed by the reminder and the comparison of this ordinary-looking man doing more or less the same thing.

"You going to explain why this man's nose caved in, Seb?" John demanded, glaring at him.

Seb fought the urge to whimper. "Erm, we got into a fight. He's fine, right?"

"Unless we can get some antibiotics, unlikely," was the flat reply as the doctor peeled the bloodied nitrile gloves off of his hands. "He'll need to rest here, and I'll need a word with Jim about what the hell he was thinking."

"The Boss doesn't know," Seb panicked. In the rush to get Willy away, they'd had to dive into the Knightsbridge hole. Somehow, the good doctor had left his regular schedule to haunt the place, and hence the current hole Seb was digging himself into. "Oh, God, shit. He's going to kill me. Please, doc. Jim will have me flayed alive."

Seb had heard what happened to lieutenant number two. Jim still wore the shoes that used to be the lieutenant when he wanted to dress up.

John sighed. "It's an emergency, then."

Seb nodded furtively.

"He'll be fine, I reset his nose and performed an emergency tracheotomy," John muttered, looking away. "If it heals up, maybe I'll forget."

"Thanks doc!" Seb's head bobbed up and down. "I won't forget!"

John sighed, sitting back on the chair where a now-unconscious Willy's sleeping face faced him. Since he'd returned from Afghanistan, he'd been underfoot more often than not. Jim might smile and pretend otherwise, but it was clear... that somewhere, domesticity had gotten a little same-y for Jim.

It was great. It was everything John ever wanted. It was _more _than he could ever dream of wanting. It was perfect.

It really was.

* * *

_**Please review!**_


	6. Leave it to Penny

_**Dr and Mr Moriarty**_

* * *

"I heard the great artisans say, the more the teapot is used, the more beautiful it becomes."

A thud, and a clink as the clay pot was lifted.

"The pot is seasoned by repeatedly pouring tea over the surface," she continued speaking, idly spinning the handle around her pinky. "The deposit left on the clay leaves a beautiful patina over time. Some pots, the clay has been burnished by tea made over four hundred years ago. And you're using it to pour yourself a brew. How fitting."

"Penny, please... I can't do this anymore."

"Soo-Lin, who says you have to? It's been five years, you've been hiding with me."

"Penny, they're coming for me. I know it."

"No. They're coming for Soo-Lin Yao. They're not going to be thinking about Penny Huxleigh. Some things aren't meant to be behind glass. They're supposed to be touched, handled. See? Your work made this one shine a little brighter."

"But I- Penny, don't."

"Su," the syllable was pronounced sharply, rather than turned into a caress as it should. "Dearie, you've survived five years with me. Did you think I'd let you die? It'd be a waste."

"Penelope..."

"That's right," the dark-haired woman nodded, setting the teapot down with no small amount of delicacy. "Leave it to Penny. It'll all work out. No one looks at the two of us. So, please stop asking."

The box containing the set was slammed shut.

* * *

"I think I'm starting to get jealous," muttered John as the Moriarty-Watson couple sauntered towards their regular Thai restaurant. He was pointedly ignoring Jim, who was slouched over in a hoodie and jeans, buried deep in his phone. "I come back from the locum. Tired, sore, and dying from tea-deprivation. What's the first thing I hear when I come home? Was it 'Johnny, how nice to see you, look, I'm making tea for you?' No. Because apparently, I'm the great Jim Moriarty, and I'm too high-and-mighty to make tea because my bloody phone is more interesting than my _husband_!"

"I was _naked_," Jim impatiently answered, flipping through his email messages. "And I didn't know when you were coming home."

"You. The guy who started the sexting phase of our marriage. _Forget_."

"You still didn't look," sulked Jim, who _had_ made the effort and cornered John between the fridge and the counter, kissed him soundly, and almost threw in his face the Moriarty-Watsons' entire collection of toys. Unfortunately, Jim Moriarty-Watson had forgotten about eating, and John Watson-Moriarty was not about to let his husband go hungry on _his_ watch. Plus, John had spotted the _tickets_. Hence their impromptu date out to the Yellow Dragon Circus after dinner.

"Two," John had asked.

"Under which name?"

"Erm, Moriarty."

Jim had mentally cursed the slight look of fear John had gotten as they got their tickets. John _wasn't_ supposed to know.

"It's actually a gimmick sort of thing," Jim was loudly discussing as the host of the circus appeared. "They played up all the Chinese aspects when it's pretty clear that this level of dexterity is actually the Chinese variation of street performances. They're actually a cover for a gang of international smugglers."

"Jim, behave," John had given him a look, and Jim had shut up from the BAMF-ness of the Captain voice. "You don't have to joke just because you don't want to look at them."

Then whatever John had been about to say died a quick death as he looked at the performing hall. "You said circus. It said circus. This is not a circus. Jim, this is... _art_."

"This is not their day job," Jim baldly replied.

"Sorry, I forgot it's not a circus, they're a gang of international smugglers," John answered without missing a beat. "Oh, is that Sherlock?"

There he was, bloody Holmes and his bloody fancy coat and scarf. The rate at which Holmes had appeared to John's public appearances had been done with such unnerving precision, Jim had been half-tempted to just order a sniping right there and then, great game or not.

"No," Jim lied.

John kept twitching back towards Holmes while their host made the introduction of the giant crossbow, and then the escapology act began.

"Classic Chinese escapology act," Jim hissed.

"Hmm?" John looked from Holmes to him at last.

"Crossbow's on a delicate string," Jim explained. "The warrior's got to escape the chains before it fires."

Shouts of discomfort, and then John went abruptly still at the gong before his head snapped to one side. "J- Jim?"

"It's fine, it's just the gong," Jim soothed, patting John's shoulder. "It's all fine, see?"

John relaxed as the female opera host held up a knife as part of the demonstration.

"She splits the sandbag, the sand pours out," Jim explained, soothing and quiet. "Gradually, the weight lowers into the bowl."

John's breath heightened with every millimetre the weight lowered, and Jim leaned forward, anticipating potential blood. The crossbow would fire, the warrior might not make it in time... maybe John would run and save him, and then Jim could take his badass doctor out to town and reward the hero-

Sadly, the crossbow fired and impacted on plain wood.

"My God!" John ejaculated. There may or may not be a sexual element to that, Jim darkly thought.

Still, Holmes had buggered off, John was smiling at him, and for that Jim just just happily ride bitch. So the smile that Jim answered his husband with might have contained an element of truth as the disguised General Shan started yammering on about Chinese bird spiders.

He didn't need Holmes's pretty face or irregular features or cold indifferent façade about John, John who thrived on danger and adventure and just might stumble onto Jim's not-very-good activities. John didn't need Holmes's force of personality, or predatory motions, or that fancy coat that Jim was attracted to and also repulsed with, because John was looking at that coat fondly and Jim knew about John's height complex. Jim was predatory enough, and so was John.

Holmes was going to die, Jim decided. No mess, no fuss, no elaborate plot. Then Jim would have pre-empted the Lothario who was going to take John from him.

* * *

Simplistic elegance.

Eddie Van Coon. Died of a gunshot to the head in his bedroom.

Brian Lukis. Died of the same.

Soo-Lin Yao. Disappeared nearly four days ago, along with the other occupant of her flat, Penny Huxleigh.

"They could be a thousand miles away," the curator at the National Antiquities Museum where both of them worked had said. "Flatmates, the two of them. Very close friends. No one noticed them, friends, colleagues, family, I've looked everywhere."

Flush indicates an interest in the Sapphic arts, and from there Sherlock had switched him off. Obviously both women were involved somehow, though why would a Westerner attempt to study Chinese antiquities was beyond him.

Either way, Sherlock had examined the two bodies currently in the morgue, found the tattoos on the bottom of the heel, and proceeded to trace the movements of Van Coon and Lukis. Antiquities, China, and the timing coincided with the appearance of the Yellow Dragon Circus in London for one day only.

Once was an anomaly. Twice was a coincidence. Thrice was a conspiracy. And Sherlock was well acquainted with the three-murder rule for serial killers. Hence his appearance at the circus tonight.

_A killer who can climb, who can shin up a rope. Where else would we find that level of dexterity? Exit visas are scarce in China. They need a pretty good reason to get out of the country._

"You said circus. It said circus. This is not a circus. Jim, this is... art."

There he was.

Dr Moriarty and Mr Watson. Clearly fresh from dinner at the Thai restaurant down the road, and walked here. Dr Moriarty and Mr Watson, arms entwined, and Sherlock tamped down on the possessiveness at seeing Watson cling onto John.

When did _Moriarty_ evolve to _John_, Sherlock neither knew nor cared. He just stared, as Dr Moriarty displayed signs of possible PTSD, then reassurance that Watson provided – that was all _wrong_, Sherlock's inner child protested – and they settled to enjoy the circus.

Even finding the proof backstage later wasn't enough to assuage Sherlock's mood, since the rest of the circus escaped pretty quickly, along with the Moriarty-Watson couple. The Tong existed, and so did the Black Lotus. He needed the rendezvous point. The hideout.

He needed to find Soo-Lin Yao.

"What would a gang of international smugglers need an antiquities expert? Especially Soo-Lin Yao?" Sherlock grumbled. "She can't be the only expert on porcelain. If anything, her teapots prove that she was clearly devoted to antiquities-"

Devoted. Teapots.

_Those teapots, they were her obsession, _the young curator, Andy, had mentioned. _They need urgent work. If they dry out, they start to crumble. Apparently, you just have to keep making tea in them._

Only one was shining yesterday. Now, there are two...

* * *

"Fancy a biscuit with that?"

She nearly dropped the teapot in her surprise, one that Sherlock barely caught.

"Centuries old," he chided. "Don't want to drop that."

The lights flashed on.

Soo-Lin Yao stared back at him, eyes darting from side to side as if deciding whether to run or fight. Fight-flight-freeze, Sherlock considered.

"Hello."

"You saw the cipher," she murmured. "Then you know he is coming."

"You've been clever to avoid him thus far," he commented.

"I had to finish," she whispered, her voice more urgent. "I had to finish this work. It's... only a matter of time. He will find me."

"Who is he? You've met him before?"

Hesitation, and Soo-Lin cast her eyes away. "When I was a girl... we met in China. I recognised his... signature."

"The cipher?"

"Only he would do this. Zhi Zhu."

"The spider."

She took off her shoe, revealing the tattoo. "You know this mark?"

"Yes. The mark of a Tong."

"Every foot soldier bears the mark," she whispered, as if in a dream. "Everyone who hauls for them."

"You were a smuggler." A statement of fact.

She tugged her shoe back on, forlornly continuing. "I was... fifteen. My parents were dead. I had no livelihood. No way of surviving, day to day. Except to work... work for the bosses."

"Who were they?"

"They are called... the Black Lotus." Hesitation. "By the time I was sixteen, I was taking thousands of pounds of drugs across the border into Hong Kong."

A brief silence, and when she next spoke, her voice was shaking as she kept smiling. "I- I managed to leave that life behind me... I came to London. They gave me a job, here. Everything was good. New life."

"And he came looking for you."

"...Yes." Now her face twisted, between laughter and crying. "I- I hoped... after five years, that... maybe they would have forgotten. Forgotten me. But... they never really let you _leave_. A small community like ours... they are never very far away."

The voice was matter-of-fact, self-depreciating. She wiped away her tears, and when she spoke next, the tone was flat, a recital. "He came to my flat. He asked me to help him track down something... something that was stolen. I... I refused to help."

Questions... questions... "You knew him."

"Of course." A pause. "He's my brother. Two orphans... we had no choice. We could work for them, or we could starve on the streets, like beggars. My brother... he has become their puppet, in the power of the one they call Shan. Their general. I- I turned my brother away. He said...that I had betrayed him. The next day, I came to work... and it was waiting."

The moment of truth. Sherlock produced the warning that had been quickly painted over. "Can you decipher it?"

"Y- Yes." She took a look. "These are the cipher. All of them, they know it. It's based upon a book many travellers would hold. Numbers. The first is a page, the second is the word order."

"A book many travellers would hold..." Sherlock stared as she laid out the _London A to Z_. "Simple elegance. Who would think of a normal tourist guide? Elegant, simplistic elegance. Crack one, just have to pick up another book."

_Nine, million, fore, jade, pin, dragon, den, black, tramway._

Blackness and silence fell over the room.

"He's here." she whispered. "The spider has found me."

Sherlock ran off.

Then followed a cat and mouse game through the museum, the palaeontology section and the main foyer before a single gunshot sounded.

"Oh," Sherlock whispered, already running back, but to see the dead body sprawled out before him... the body of the Chinese assassin. "You killed him."

Hands shaking, the gun clattered to the ground. "I- I- I didn't mean to. _Wo mei you gu yi zuo de_..."

"You took his gun and killed him with it," Sherlock commented. "Nerve, and courage. Not the act of someone's who's just existing, waiting for the axe to fall. Flatmates. You knew Zhi Zhu was there, you referred to him as _the spider_. Not Zhi Zhu. Not as any other name. _The spider_. English."

"His name was Liang," she defended, her voice changing to something different, strident, and more exact of Received Pronunciation.

"The milk went off, and the washing was starting to smell," Sherlock recited. "But there was too much clothings. And two pairs of the same shoes. No woman would buy two pairs of the same shoes. Not at the same time. But Zhi Zhu didn't know that. Zhi Zhu was also rather short-sighted not to notice in the first place. A Westerner and an Easterner sharing a flat would have drawn attention in a place like Chinatown. But two _obviously_ Chinese women don't, and Penelope Huxleigh is just a name."

The woman masquerading as Soo-Lin Yao nodded. "Say Penny Huxleigh, and so many think of a British woman. So painfully English. No one considers that British-born Chinese could also take Western names."

"A clever deception, at least until I demand your photograph."

She shrugged. "You never considered the possibility. So your own perception deluded you."

"So it did." He paused. "You have just killed a man."

"He wasn't a very nice man, was he?" she asked, kicking him in the stomach. He groaned. "Tell me, Liang. What does it mean when an assassin doesn't succeed in killing you?"

The eyes of Zhi Zhu, or Liang, flashed open as the muzzle centred on his forehead.

"It means they're not really trying," she answered her own question. "Turn the light on, if you please."

Sherlock automatically reached for the light switch. "Urgh. The _name_. Such a cheap trick."

"Yes, apparently demographics don't quite occur to the English until it's too late," Penelope Huxleigh agreed. "Liang. As you can see, I'm not _Yao Su Lin-_"

"The pronunciation's different-"

"It's Chinese." Penelope cut into Sherlock's diatribe. "And I know that you tried to kill my flatmate, Liang. So, before I kill you, give me a reason to spare your life."

The eyes of the Chinese man were wide with surprise. "_Ni shi shui_?"

"_Zhe wen ti, gen zhe ge an jian you shen me guan xi_? _Hui da wo. Wo zhi dao ni dong de ying yu._"

"_Wo dui Shan Jiang Jun de zhong xin, shi bu hui gai de. Ni sha wo ba!_"

"_Shi ma?_"

"What is he saying?" the genius detective demanded.

"He's a fanatic. He won't talk. He's offered for us to kill him." she aimed, and a small click sounded as a tiny flame emitted from the muzzle. "A shame. That he fell for such a cheap trick and didn't notice himself bleeding out in the end. Such dogmatic loyalty."

The assassin's eyes went wide, and he reached up to his heart where the palette knife clattered onto the floor. "The gun- no- I... I..."

Dispassionately, the fake lighter clattered onto the floor beside the nearly dead assassin.

"The gunshot?" Sherlock pressed.

From behind her skirt, Penelope produced the remains of two pieces of wood. "Clapped it behind him, poked him in the chest." A pause, and then, matter-of-fact: "I suppose this is the stage where you call the Yard."

"There's still the rest of the Black Lotus," Sherlock argued. "I have no idea where are they."

"But you do," she answered. "I just gave you the code. Would they leave without it?"

"If they were too close," he answered. "Then yes."

"If you don't mind, then, we shall part ways here," Penelope suggested. "I apparently have to visit a tramway before daybreak."

"Why?"

Silently, she pulled out a knife, and threw a wink. "Leave it to Penny. She always does her job."

* * *

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	7. Rings fall the circle comes in place

_**Dr and Mr Moriarty**_

* * *

Huxleigh. The Chinese bird spider and the other grunt fallen. General Shan escaped.

Leave it to Penny. She always does her job... no matter what.

Jim was furious. The circus, the resulting fracas, and John gleefully knocking performers off as he dragged Jim out of the old hall only reinforced the feelings of being miffed. Even sex with John felt lacklustre. Not from any part of John's, of course, but Jim was slightly cheesed that he couldn't get his husband off and wasn't in the mood to.

_Gratitude is meaningless. It is only the expectation of further favours._

Now John was asleep, and Jim was attempting to manage the mess left in the wake of that fiasco. Who knew that Holmes had joined forces with Huxleigh? He'd have to call Adler in, and John didn't like her. Not like goddamn _Huxleigh_. Of course Huxleigh was a mercurial creature, so perhaps the Black Lotus just inconvenienced her. It wouldn't be the first time the Moriarty-Watsons met Penelope _goddamn_ Huxleigh and John nearly found out about Dear Jim.

_They cannot trace this back to me._

Jim was lucky Penny had set up 'Leave it to Penny' off in Asia somewhere, which meant that more often than not she was in Shanghai or Hong Kong and across the very large Pacific pond. An alliance that was more useful than not, but inconvenient. Inconvenient because if she died, then John would find out, because Penny knew Harry Watson and Jim hated his sister-in-law for being so low as to stoop to drink, and that John kept in touch with her.

Either way, if Penny died, John would know, John would be sad, and Jim would take the brunt of John moping. And John moping always looked like an adorable hedgehog that both offended and aroused Jim.

Hah, hedgehog.

_I am certain._

The ringing of a call right after the message was sent. "Number Four to Number One."

Jim jammed the call button. "Number One calling in, and I hate that book. Number Four is more interesting."

"_Number One is the brains. Number Four the destroyer. And John loves the book. Shan is dead?_"

"Yes, Penny." Then Jim took a deep breath. "You told Holmes."

"I told him nothing. He simply never entertained the notion of a Chinese woman taking a Western name. It was coincidence."

"A common assumption. Remember J- Hastings?"

"Sweet man. Loyal to a fault. Your hubby. Who also doesn't know about this."

Jim sighed. "I don't have to call Irene, then. Unless you could give me reasons not to."

"An erroneous assumption, assuming your tart would even survive against me, so you would just lose one asset. John wouldn't put up with Irene. You know the skank that Irene is, whereas I am a valuable extension of your web and perfectly content with triad wars. I am aware of your marital state and the fact that your mind-screw with the family names gives you kicks. I divert hits placed on Jim Watson's family. Plus, I know Harry Watson, which makes us extended family through John. Finally, I can give you a certain piece of information."

Then her voice changed. "Damn."

"What?"

"Iceman cometh. Running now, ditch the number when I hang up. Also..." a ragged breath. "Holmes is self-deluded in his perceptions. He is not the type to second-guess himself. The narrative within him is perfectly set; that he would entertain no other bee in his bonnet unless presented with evidence."

Jim's jaw twitched as Penny hung up on him.

Then he immediately disassembled it, broke the card, and ditched everything after breaking it and soaking it in bleach before throwing it into the specially prepared bin that led downstairs to the incinerator.

The saddest thing was that Penny was right.

Irene was smart and sexy, and _sane_.

Penny was smart, but mousy, and a bit like John. Which basically meant that Penny was already unhinged, but her force of character meant that people always remembered her differently depending on how she was acting. Penny's smarts were dangerous, challenging, and like someone whose name was unfortunately Wu Zetian, she was also born with the ambition that surrounded that particular woman. Penny was not above doing things for free, not above doing the completely insane and unexpected, and not above shooting her enemies in the face.

Irene had tried to suss out a weakness, and presented him with more work in her ambition. Jim had been impressed, grudgingly. Penny had infuriated him, because she had quite accurately sussed out and got for herself something Jim was still smarting over; protection via John. More effective than she had known at the time, but true.

Penny was John's cloak of protection from Jim. Conversely, Penny was also protected from Jim through John. It was irritating. Jim respected her, but that didn't mean he had to _like_ her.

"Boss? The C4 is here." Seb shivered as Jim's reptilian gaze settled on him, unblinking.

"What?" Jim spat.

"We got the statement from the Yard's archives." Seb hesitated. "Holmes mentioned you two. Of course, it's an airtight alibi, since you were really on a date, but erm... it's a warning. Lawyers?"

"I'll have some on standby," Jim waved. When Seb didn't move, Jim finally considered him. "What?!"

"You're really married," Seb slowly replied.

"Yes," Jim blinked.

"Oh." Seb shifted his weight. "Erm... he's a good man. Crack shot. Wolf in sheep's clothing."

"Y- Yes," Jim answered, slightly softer.

"Jim... how long did you keep it from him?"

"All the time," Jim morosely answered, curling up on the couch. "I told him about some of the more dubious ones, he was fine. But the murders... I don't know. John is a strongly moral man, a war hero. I can't run that risk."

Seb nodded. "If he finds out... termination?"

Jim sniffed and, with finality, his head was bowed. In his hands, around the left ring finger, was that thing that had caught Seb off guard. The ring glimmered, a simple pledge of devotion and fidelity and all the wedding shit Seb hadn't cared about. If Jim hadn't once took it off to handle _aqua regia_, Seb wouldn't have even seen that the ring was genuine Cartier.

It was the closest thing Seb had seen Jim pray to.

* * *

"Can't."

"Can't?"

"Stuff I've got on. It's too big, I can't spare the time."

"Never mind your usual trivia, this is of national importance."

Here a pizzicato note rung from the violin. "How's the diet?"

"_Fine_." A touch too much emphasis, before a meaningful expression came to his face. "How's your cyber-stalking of Dr Moriarty?"

Sherlock frowns.

Mycroft pressed, "Oh, don't worry about the good doctor, I'm sure he'll leave your coat alone the next time he sees you."

The speed at which Sherlock whipped his head around was frightening. "That was a gross abuse of medical authority."

"Technically, the fact that you defied doctor's orders was a gross abuse of police authority. Sherlock, you know you're just miffed that he called you mad on his blog. Brilliant, but mad."

"Wrong."

"You made yourself dizzy looking for hints to invalidate the union. I've never seen you so disappointed upon learning of the couple's... ah, unique sexual experience."

Sherlock's only reply is a sniff of disdain as he turned his face away.

"If I mentioned that Moriarty was involved in West's case, I would have gotten a faster answer," Mycroft sniffed, putting the folder down on the low coffee table. "Caring is not an answer, brother mine."

"I don't care," Sherlock sulked. There was a pout and everything. "Is that all?"

Mycroft simply twirled his umbrella. "Penny Huxleigh. A criminal, specialising in... transactions. Mainly operates in Asia, the East bit. An extension of that network you were investigating, who is mercenary but holds links to British citizenry through her late half-brother, Godfrey Norton."

"A private grudge against Shan," Sherlock reflected. "And not many believe that a Chinese woman could take a Western name."

"As no one thinks that the name of Watson could be Irish, or that the name of Moriarty be Scottish," Mycroft sighed. "Sherlock... just because a man has a name, does not mean that he is the only one of that name in the world."

"His name is not unique," Sherlock answered. "His existence is."

Mycroft groaned, and then left, leaving a lonely man and his violin and skull in a sitting room that was still missing pieces of itself, both physical and otherwise.

* * *

"Do you realise that your husband is clearly unfaithful?"

John blinked. He was standing in the medical laboratory of St Bart's, and Sherlock Holmes was talking to him. Jim had been casually dismissed, and John had the feeling that Jim was miffed off, enough to leave John alone despite the temporary job Jim had taken with Bart's. "Charming, well done."

"I'm saving you the pain, isn't it kinder?" Sherlock echoed.

"No, no. That wasn't kind. Not at all." John tilted his head. "I should have told Jim to get Penny. Now his surprise has to change."

"Penny?"

"Old friend, Penny," John reflected. "Our tenth anniversary of meeting is coming up, so it's usually something special. The last anniversary before my last tour, I asked her to Dom for us, but Jim... he had his own surprise, Irene. The Dommes knew each other, which ended up in an epic cat-fight."

"You clearly preferred your friend to this Irene," Sherlock observed.

"Irene... she's ambitious," John waved a hand. "Jim's an international consultant, I think Irene's using him. Either way, I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her. But Penny, I'd trust with my life."

Sherlock barely glanced up from the microscope. "And yet the other half of your life is sourcing for entertainment in other quarters."

"He likes to watch me get off with dark-haired brunettes. Preferably tall, pale and intelligent."

The focus knob made an unhappy whine as Sherlock glanced up slowly. "...what?"

"It's about symmetry. Don't ask, it's some art concept I don't understand."

"_What_?"

"But I guess this time Jim was looking for a guy to create his voyeur show."

The unhappy focus knob nearly cracked under the strain of Sherlock's grip. "The fact that your spouse gets off on you finding sexual pleasure in others is usually an indication of a black widow. I suppose you should guard that pension with your life."

John twitched, but centuries of stout British manners in the face of adversity had bred true in John.

"Tea?" he asked politely. "I'm going out to get a cuppa."

Somewhere in Afghanistan, several soldiers shivered and reached for their body armour, and then stopped and gave each other confused looks.

"Coffee, black, no sugar," Sherlock mumbled. "Even you can't mess that up, _Molly_ got it right."

"Oh?" John asked mildly. Those soldiers in Afghanistan were looking about them wildly with increasing paranoia.

The computer beeped, but Sherlock ignored it to stare at John. "Bit... not good?"

The look John gave him could have stopped a band of armed Afghani insurgents in their tracks. And quite possibly had. "No, not at all."

He left, leaving a feeling of hollow victory behind.

"Not much cop, this caring lark."

* * *

"Why am I doing this?"

Sherlock ignored him.

"Seriously, an assassin called the Golem?"

"You took him down."

John very carefully did not meet his eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about. He was dead when I got there."

"Yes, when you got there. The beauty of projectile weapons being to kill your opponents at a distance. Come here, you need the oxygen."

Sherlock considered him very carefully. "You remember your comment on how someone who knew nothing about art could be an expert on something else."

"Quite. Is it relevant?"

"Very. A boy's life was saved on that comment." Sherlock stared down at him. "Astronomy. An altogether useless subject in the field of crime."

"Not all murders are conducted with logic, you know. Emotions play a part in it."

"High-functioning sociopath, irrelevant," Sherlock bit back.

John let that subject go. "Well, so... all these cases. They're linked?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I suppose I can't the only person who's bored."

"I think the opponent's just taking the mickey," John commented. "Showing himself off."

"Explain."

"The boy, Carl Powers. Knowledge of fashion required, or an encyclopaedic knowledge of footprints and shoe makes in the United Kingdom. Connie Prince and Botox, well that's obvious. This case, the Vemeer one, it involved art, astronomy, and mythology. Not the typical serial-killer symbology set."

"You'd be surprised how much literature can feature in the art of murder," Sherlock muttered, the laser-stare intensified. "But you might be on to something, Dr Moriarty. Tell me... if I were to tell you that all of these cases you have heard, were all planned by the same person, what would you think?"

John paused, never answering a word. "The themes are different."

"Explain."

"They're all different targets. Different... you get different impressions from all the cases. I don't know anything aside from what's reported, obviously, but... the Powers case, it sounded like revenge. And the Prince case, it's like if Harry intended to murder me, but Jim might have pre-empted it, you know? Jim doesn't like Harry."

In any other case, Sherlock was positive that he would hate this Harry, but in this case he approved of the disapproval. "Your brother might be correct. I wouldn't share my husband."

A pause. "Erm... so you're... because, it's fine, you know."

"I know."

"But-" John licked his lips, and Sherlock's eyes widened as hints of what the Doctor had mentioned the last time slotted in.

"Doctor, I'm flattered, but-"

"It's fine."

"And the Vemeer case?" Sherlock quickly changed the subject back.

"Oh. Erm... Czech. Czech woman, Czech assassin, painting's Czech... like that myth about the rabbi and the original golem. It's like each is an individual masterpiece."

"Oh," Sherlock breathed. "Of course..."

"Yes?"

"_Individuality_." Sherlock pressed, staring at him. "Each case, as you said, is an individual _masterpiece_. He's a criminal, someone who supplies solutions to problems. But he's an artist; each aspect is micromanaged to complement the crime, not too heavy a hand, but not too light either. That's the beauty of it; there's no individual signature, because the sign is seen only when the whole thing comes together. Puzzles within puzzles... brilliant!"

John smiled in the way that said that he was only humouring him. "I'm glad."

"And coming from the horse's mouth as it was, I can say that you are amazing," Sherlock continued, as the door opened behind him. "Because you see, Dr Moriarty, Miss Wenceslas admitted to her contact's name. _Moriarty_."

* * *

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	8. You give me the wings to fly

_**Dr and Mr Moriarty**_

* * *

"You might want to find evidence," Lestrade hissed at Sherlock. "Because a terrorism charge? The press is going to have a field day."

"Watson mustn't have known of it," Sherlock pored over the documents. "J... J for John. Dr John Moriarty. The botulinium was repeating, but why waste it otherwise? And-"

The pink phone rang. Lestrade and Sherlock exchanged looks.

"I thought you said he was isolated!" Lestrade barked.

"He is!" Sherlock insisted. "He shouldn't have given it up so simply-"

"Sir!" Sally's form was plastered onto the door frame, a testament to the speed at which she had run. "It's Moriarty. He's escaped."

* * *

_Dr Moriarty to assist in investigation..._

The lapels lay flat on his chest, and he was still, but Seb, plus the rest of the snipers, could tell. The Boss was on a hair trigger.

_Found, the Bruce-Partington Plans. Please collect. The Pool. Midnight._

"There's no evidence." Seb pressed. "He'll leave."

"The Iceman has John," Jim whispered, clutching at his left hand. Seb knew, that around his neck the Doctor wore a matching one on a chain.

"You said it," Seb pressed. "No one ever gets to you, no one ever will. What makes John Watson different?"

"He gave me life," Jim repeated. "He gave me a reason to stay alive. It wasn't boring."

"Finish off Holmes," Seb tried a different angle. "He dies here, the Doc's gonna make it. The Met has nothing on him, even if it's a terrorism charge. Another bomb would put that to right."

"R- Right."

Jim gave a brilliantly charming smile, the fear melting away as well as a wax mask. "Shall we?"

It was worth it, to see the face of Sherlock Holmes shut down as Mr Jim Moriarty-Watson strolled out by the pool.

"Dr Moriarty was your front." Sherlock opened his gambit. "He was an actor."

Jim gave a winning smile that melted off into rage. "No, he was ignorant. He got lucky."

"So your pawn unwittingly pulled off a stunning performance." Sherlock looked bored, a mask. "How... pathetic. That what I thought was an act turned out to be the real face of an ex-Army doctor with-"

He ducked as a sniper's shot rang above.

"The beauty of marriage is, that we can take each other's name," Jim woodenly told the shocked, stony expression of Sherlock Holmes, whose curls were messed up and his face plastered to the tile underfoot. "Dr John Moriarty was once Dr John _Watson_. Mr Jim Watson was Mr James _Moriarty_. Soo-Lin Yao and Penny Huxleigh all over again. Just because someone is named _Moriarty_ doesn't mean that he was the Moriarty _you thought of_!"

In a rather anti-climatic response, Sherlock's eyes widened. "Dr M- John. The names..."

"I'm Sherlock Holmes, and I always work alone, because no one else can compete with my _massive intellect_!" Jim screamed. "J. Moriarty... James Moriarty! Like it, Sherlock?! Like it that it was complete coincidence that Dr _John_ Moriarty and Mr James Moriarty had the same initials? _Fooled_ you, didn't we?!"

"Dear Jim, please will you get rid of my lover's nasty sister for me?" Sherlock snarled. "Consulting criminal. And I suppose your front was John?"

"Let me tell you a story, Sherlock," Jim began pacing about. "Once upon a time, an Irish boy named Jim came to London. He entered a truly boring degree course in computer programming, and he was thoroughly bored by everything and everyone he met. Jim was a psychopath, you see, and bombs were rather a theatrical speciality of his, so he was in the backstage club. One day, an amateur theatre director who roped him in with a credit score introduced him to her girlfriend's brother, a certain medical student named John. Hamish. _Watson_."

Here, Jim turned on one heel to snap at Sherlock's face. "Jim was completely uninterested in John _at first_. It was at the post-production party an hour later, and Jim had one too many pints and started mouthing off, when John hauled off and slugged this red-neck Jim was mouthing at with no regard for himself. So Jim, now sober, took a good look at John and found someone who liked war and adventure, and then Jim and John began talking. John was a wolf in a bloody _stupid_ jumper, and John was Not. _Boring_."

"But must you tell me this? It's unbearably twee."

"Don't worry. It gets darker," Jim promised. "Five years passed, and John and Jim keep in touch even through varsity life and the first tour. John came back, and then Jim and John ran to Gretna Green with the marriage license in hand. That was where Mr and Dr Moriarty was born, Sherlock."

"Through an elopement?" Sherlock scoffed.

"Uniqueness amongst the unique is blending in," Jim waved. "Uniqueness amidst the masses of normality is transcendent. John is my background, my frame, my contrast, my conductor of light. Someone who has no genius of his own value, but stimulates it to degrees I have never considered. Of course, John was also a decent man, with strong moral principles, but corrupting the paragons is always something... incredible"

"Elegant puzzles," Sherlock commented. "Carl Powers was rather ham-handed, as was your tactic of tying John to yourself."

"That was before I met John," Jim shrugged. "You noticed, didn't you? The _style_."

"Simplicity in obscurity and symbolism," Sherlock nodded. "The Powers case was a child's work. The rest were your adult masterpieces."

"'People see blood, their first impression is bloody murder'," Jim quoted. "'Botox, nasty procedure. I can't believe anyone would want to inject that stuff into their faces'. 'Yes, Jim, the stars aren't permanent. Neither is art. But you're going on about contrasting subjects and whatnot, so take the sodding book. You're going to bloody appreciate it. So say thank you'."

Sherlock frowned at the last one. "That's... John. You're quoting _John_."

"'Black hackney, prowling the streets in the dead of night and driven by a cabbie with the stare of _death_'." Jim mouthed the last word. "Two mindsets. One of complicated little puzzles and mechanics, the other of pure inspirational light. Imagine how I felt, when the boring clients come with their silly little problems and suddenly I get these _flashes_. To _dare_. Those cases you dismissed as masterpieces? Miracles created by us. Our _babies_."

"Your art exhibition," Sherlock murmured.

"And here you are, a vandal sweeping through it," Jim waved. "Do you realise what would happen if you don't leave us alone, Sherlock?"

"Let me guess," Sherlock sounded bored. "I get killed."

"Don't be obtuse. You do realise that John gave me the idea for your murder? 'Mad bugger. Mad, but brilliant. Sad about the abuse, though. Lestrade told me, who knows when he'll relapse-'"

"Enough," Sherlock gave a low growl that should be anatomically impossible for a human larynx. "This is drifting off topic."

"True. Either way, I'm going to kill you sooner or later, but it's going to be special. Maybe I'll cast you into resin and make your corpse into a truly ugly statue. I can tell John I got it from the body farms, and you'll inhabit a place in our happy home until the end of time, staring at something you will never know until your heart rips out."

"I've been reliably informed I don't have one," Sherlock replied, not looking at him.

"I think we both know that's not quite true," Jim tapped about. "I like the Pool. Nice touch. End everything where it started, right? But if you're trying to end my marriage, the registry's in Gretna Green."

"So your exhibition comes full circle at last," Sherlock drawled. "Where is masterpiece number five?"

Jim fiddled with his nails. "You're standing in it."

"An empty pool?"

Moriarty's lips did not curve into a smile. "It's art in motion. Because I am going to talk to you... and you will cry in despair when you realise what you missed.

"You see, as long as you live, the Met has their star witness to place John in prison in my place. I'm obviously not about to turn myself in. I can rescue John any time I want. But that would mean that John Hamish Watson would be a pariah, blacklisted, hated. You can imagine what that could do to an ordinary man, let alone an intelligent one. You've seen it. You regret trapping John, short, loyal, _faithful_ John, whose only crime was to be unknowingly married to the consulting criminal and unknowingly attract the attentions of the consulting detective. I don't need you, you understand. It's just that... as long as you live, and as long as John does not know the truth, you will never be forgiven."

"What makes you think I care for his opinion either way?" Sherlock rebutted. "And I doubt a confirmed psychopath like yourself would even give a whit for his attentions, now that he's not useful to you."

"Ah, Sherlock, Sherlock," Jim sighed. "You see... we're alike, you and I. But there are two erroneous assumptions. The first is that I cannot love. The second is that I doubt myself as much as you do."

"I? Doubt myself?" Sherlock's eyes flicked from side to side. "I don't."

"Dr Moriarty," Jim reminded him. "John was doing his natural thing, one perpetuated by that I changed the name on all his documents on a lark. So you saw an ex-Army doctor named Moriarty with strong moral principles with the ability to ignore it, relatively intelligent, and so much like a hedgehog. You thought it was a criminal masquerading as one because of his _name_, you never questioned if it was a name gotten through marriage or if it was his birth name! Tut _tut_, Sherlock."

"Just because someone has a name... does not mean that they are the only one in the world," Sherlock breathed. "Oh... so that's what he was trying to tell me. That... that John... wasn't Moriarty. It was _you_."

Jim spread his arms. "Jim Moriarty. Hi~!"

Rather anti-climatically, a phone went off then.

_You give me the wings to fly__  
__You are the clear blue sky__  
__I'm floating so free, so high__  
__Falling with grace__ – __for you and I  
You give me the wings to fly..._

* * *

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	9. Epilogue: Into the dark depths

_**Dr and Mr Moriarty**_

* * *

"Mind if I get that?" Jim sighed.

Sherlock paused. "Please."

Sherlock blinked for several moments as Jim fished out the phone and simpered.

"John!" Jim greeted. Several heartbeats might have skipped there.

"_Jim, you've managed to piss off the Secret Service now,_" John's voice was relatively steady. "_You... and I... __what the hell?!_"

"I can explain," Jim stage-whispered. "It's a game."

"_The little old lady?_"

"Wanted to go out with a bang. Said so herself."

"_And the twelve others?_"

"Architectural fault. Not my fault the damned things were cheap."

"_I am running from an, and I quote, _minor government official_ with stalkerish control over CCTV and traffic lights, the Met is on my tail, and I need to __confirm __what the hell have you done__. Now!_"

Jim closed his eyes. "It's true. It's all true. I'm a secret criminal mastermind with a network more extensive than you'll ever imagine. I killed them. I paid the cabbie. I let the Black Lotus into London. The bully I told you about, that was Carl. I spirited Ian Monkford away. I planned the murder of Connie Prince. I arranged for the fake Vemeer. And I blew up that building opposite 221B Baker Street. Also, I disappeared your abusive sister-in-law and I've been paying for Harry's AA sessions. Will you forgive me if I said that?"

A long silence came over the airways. "_Well... that's it, then._"

"I love you," Jim blurted. "Will you come visit me in jail?"

"_Don't be silly. I should be asking you that._"

"...what?" Jim nearly let go of the phone.

"_S__irens__'__ approaching. I'm going to give them a run around __London__. Jim, take Seb- Seb's still working for you, right? Either way, run. Leave England, leave the bloody Continent if you have to._"

"No, John." Jim pleaded. "_No_. Don't. I can get us through this. John, don't. They'll _kill_ you."

"_Jim..._" a rush of static; John sighed. "_Jim... __I don't know how to condone this. I don't know what to say. It's not brilliant. It's not amazing. __But it's you, you can't control it. Not even for me._"

"It's not a theft or a heist or murder," Sherlock whispered. "It's a terrorism charge."

Jim ignored him. "They'll lock you away forever-"

"_Better me than you!_" another rush of static punctuated the words.

When John next spoke, it was with a bitter air of finality. "_Jim... if I regretted something __of us__, it's that I wasn't around for most of our marriage_."

"Don't be stupid, it's not you, it's us," Jim insisted. "We're wild and free and fey and _fuck_ the world. Maybe we can take over Australia! Don't give yourself up."

"_Yes._" John sighed. "_You're brilliant. That's why... where are you?_"

"The community pool," Jim smiled. "You know, the Powers case? Holmes is here too. Do you want to say hi?"

"_He is? __Do I want to know? Never mind. Either way, promise me. If the Met comes to you, you don't know anything. At all. I've set fire to the flat-_"

"You what?! John, that's our house-!"

"_-and I'm surrounded," _John finished. "_Tell Sherlock... I don't hold a grudge. He was doing what he thought was logical. Correct. Tell him... he was amazing... but wrong anyway. A__pparently... it's de rigour to snipe terrorists __if they resist__._"

Jim opened his mouth, but the phone had been snatched away.

"You know," Sherlock drawled into the receiver, looking miffed. "This is very touching, but this means that if James Moriarty stands trial, you, Dr Watson, will be exonerated. You will be free. It is not worth your life to die for a criminal. I can rescind my statement, that... that I was wrong. I was wrong all along. That's why..."

"_No, you didn't,_" John whispered. "_You observed, as you said, __Mr Holmes__. The facts just led you differently._"

"I was wrong," Sherlock repeated. "I was wrong. You seriously cannot think of protecting this psychopath, Dr Watson."

"_I... It's been an honour._"

The phone clattered to the pool's edge. Somehow, the speaker function had been set on, and the whine of sirens echoed distantly within.

"_I,_" and here even Jim was caught off guard by the pain and ragged lethargy in that voice. "_Am. __Doctor__. Moriarty._"

"John- John!" Jim clutched at the phone, but it spiralled out to tip over into the edge. The glimmering depths swallowed it with barely a splash, the waves making ripples in a smooth, vaguely turbulent surface. Within a clear crystal sphere, bubbles spiralled about, into final depths.

_You give me the wings to fly  
You are the clear blue sky  
I'm floating so free, so high  
Falling with grace__ – __for you and I  
__You give me the wings to fly..._

The screen went dark.

* * *

On the rooftop of a hospital, Sherlock Holmes discovers that just because you have planned for something does not mean you would not be scared.

He _is_ scared; in this moment, he is more terrified than he has ever been in his life. There are so many ways this could go wrong, some part of him is tempted to just call it all off…

He cannot.

Standing on the pavement below him is the person who taught Sherlock what it meant to have something to lose, and if he does not fall, John Watson is going to die. A world without John is the worst hell Sherlock can conceive of.

This is not that world.

* * *

"_The Princess Bride_?"

"You _really _haven't seen it? Looks like we're going to watch it next date."

"Date?"

"You're the one who called it that. Your exact phrasing was 'I, uh, just remembered that I have a date', was it not? A date on the roof of a hospital. Romantic."

"Not exactly," Sherlock huffed, staring at the other man.

Jim looked terrible. His suit was immaculate, but the man who wore it had clearly run himself into the ground with overwork and lack of nutrition. Then again, Sherlock was in no position to point it out, the same effects being so readily apparent on himself.

"It feels like there's something missing from the world now," Jim continued. "You know it."

"Of course." Sherlock stared out. "You left the apple."

"You stole his body from the morgue."

"I re-purposed it. It's useless, anyway. Unless John Watson could be cloned again?"

"It would not be _John_."

"Of course. How remiss of me."

A long, hanging silence, charged with barely leashed energy followed as the otter and the spider considered each other.

"Hello." A bare whisper. "My name is James Moriarty. You killed my husband, prepare to die."

A phone rang, and Sherlock extracted the pink phone that Jim had mailed to him months ago during the Great Game. Months had passed since then... so many months.

"Do you mind?" he asked.

"It's Mr Poppins."

"Hello, Mycroft," Sherlock put the phone on speaker.

"_Sherlock,_" Mycroft Holmes acknowledged. "_Mr Moriarty. I see your stint with us has not cured your manner__s presently__._"

"Offer me money." Jim mumbled.

"_Everything._"

"Power too. Promise me that."

"_All I have and more._"

"Offer me anything I ask for."

"_Say it._"

"I WANT JOHN WATSON, YOU SON OF A BITCH!"

The call ended. Two guns flashed.

Two screams echoed from the top of the roof.

"Cutting my heart out," Sherlock slumped down, grasping at his shirt. "Even now..."

"You took mine; I want yours now," Jim groaned, seizing at his own shirt.

They died.

When the police came, when the officers finally claimed the bodies, their faces were not petrified and ashen, neither did blood flow freely. Nor did eyes bulge wide, full of horror and pain. What need has the walking dead to feel pain?

* * *

It was like they were sleeping, Mycroft idly reflected. Interred and unmarked save for the necessary gravestones. Facing opposite ends. One faced the north-west, where Baker Street lay. The other faced Knightsbridge. Above them, the ministering angel of healing held a staff, bisecting the lines they faced.

Mycroft tutted. The sculptor had outdone himself. Granted; it was a simple matter to apply concrete over a body, but to shape it past _rigor mortis_... it was incredible art. Sadly, its story would never be told, and the man trapped within never revealed till long after decay had set and the identity of the man long forgotten.

"Burn the candle at both ends, would you?" Mycroft sadly echoed. "In any other world, maybe... just maybe, it would have been less painful."

Mycroft Holmes walked away at a sedate pace. From the staff of the statue, two snakes curled around a solid pillar, zirconium eyes glittering in the weakening dusk.

* * *

_**Please review!**_


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